Kinetoscope for projecting stereoscopic moving pictures.



A. WAYDITCH. KINETOSCOPE FOR PROJECTING STEREQSCOPIC MOVING PICTURES.

Patented Aug. 27, 1918.

APPLICATION FILED OCT. 22.1914.

ALOYS WAYDITCH, OF NEW YORK, N. Y.

KINETOSCOPE FOR PROJECTING STEREOSCOPIO MOVING PICTURES.

Specification of Letters Patent.

Patented Aug. 27, 1918.

Application fi led October 22, 1914. Serial No. 867,997.

To all whom it may concern:

Be it known that I, ALoYs WAYDITCH, a citizen of the Kingdom of Hungary,residing in New York, in the borough of Manhattan, county and State ofNew York, have invented certain new and useful Improvements inKinetoscopes for Projecting Stereoscopic Moving Pictures, of which thefollowing is a specification.

be projected to the left and right side re-' spectively of the screen,for which purpose, according to my present invention, the lens system ofthe projecting apparatus is arranged substantially as follows;

The usual projecting medium is composed of two convex lenses in a commontube, each of these lenses having a focus of about five inches. For thepurpose of projecting stereoscopic pictures, the. front lens is removedand only the rear lens is retained. The front lens is replaced by agroup of four convex lenses, each having a focus of about five inches,and about one inch in diameter. These four lenses are placed in the samevertical plane and close to each other, and a shutter is provided whichwill permit the use of these four lenses in pairs, each pair alternatingwith the others. The invention is shown in the accompanying drawing, andwill be more fully described hereinafter and finally pointed out in theclaim.

In the drawing,

Figure 1 is a perspective view of the lensgroup and the shuttercooperating therewith, i

Fig. 2 is a front view of the lenses,

Fig. 3 is a diagram showing the lenses, and shutter cooperatingtherewith, in one position,

Figs. 4, 5, and 6 are similar views showing the apparatus in otherpositions.

Similar characters of reference indicate the same parts throughout thevarious views.

Referrlng to the drawing, and more particularly to Figs. 1 and 2, fourlenses each having two straight sides, are arranged in the same verticalplane with their straight sides abutting. For convenience the lenses arein the drawing numbered consecutively 1, 2, 3 and 4. The lenses numbered1 and 3, considering them from the film side, project the left-eyepictures, and the lenses numbers 2 and 4 project the right-eye pictures, of the film produced loy means of the patent above referred to.Each of these lenses projects one picture on the screen. A sutficientpart of the lenses is ground off so that the optical axes of both pairsof lenses are brought near to each other. The result of thiscircumstance is that two separated pictures are sent to the screen froma single picture of the film and these stand on the screen like thewell-known stereoscopic double photographs.

As the principle of stereoscopic sight is that the right eye shall notsee what the left eye sees, and vice versa, means are provided forproducing the appearance and disappearance of these pictures alternatelyon the screen.

For this purpose a shutter is provided comprising a shaft 10 rotatableinbearings 11, which shaft 10 has secured thereto a gear-wheel 12 meshingwith 'a pinion 13, which receives its motion from a suitablemotion-transmitting means not shown in the drawing. On the shaft 10 aremounted two shutter boxes, exactly alike, but differing in position. Oneshutter-box consists of sidewalls 15 and a cross-wall 1.6, and a wall 17extending from the edge 18 of the crosswall 16 to the shaft 10. Theother shutterbox has the side-walls 20, the cross-wall 21 and the wall22 extending from the shaft 10 to the edge 23 of the cross-wall 21. Thegeneral arrangement of the walls just describedis such that they operatein the manner shown in Figs. 3 to 6 when the said shutter is rotated onits axis.

The lower pair of lenses 3, 4, have like functions, as the upper pair.As the drawing shows, the contacting parts are taken off notonly betweenlenses 1 and 2 respecof lenses have to project the pictures to the sameparts of the screen wherethe pictures were projected by the upper pairof lenses.

It will be seen that in the projecting apparatus, the aperture must beenlarged so as to expose two pictures. The projection is made with twopictures standing one under the other. The upper of these pictures isdivided into two pictures for the screen by.

means of the upper pair of lenses. The lower picture on the film, bymeans of the lower pair of lenses is likewise reproduced. When such aprojection is viewed without any shutter and without revolving thehandle of the projector, there is seen on the screen two picturesadjacent each other, one for the left eye and one for the right eye. Thepictures are not quite clean or clear, as the pictures projected throughthe lower pair of lenses are not quite the same as the pictures sentthrough the upper pair of lenses, as the latter shows an earlier phaseof the motion. The pictures do not pass through the middle of the lensesbecause of the circumstance that the focus of each of the lenses iseccentric, so the direction of the rays coming through the film isoblique.

Therefore, each of the pictures on the screen sufi'ers some deformationat its outermost periphery. This deformation is corrected by placing thefour lenses around their common center or chief optical axis, so thatthe inner edges of the same should be nearer the screen than theirperiphery. Hence it is necessary to arrange an alternate disappear anceand appearance of these four pictures on the screen and this is obtainedby means of the shutter referred to, a result of which is that thepictures going through lenses 1 and 4 respectively, and through 2 and 3appear on the screen contemporarily. First .appears the pictures passingthrough the lenses 1 and 4;.- (left and right) contemporarily, afterwardpictures passing through lenses 2 and 3, then again (the film havingadvanced) 1 and 4, 2 and 3, 1 and 4, 2 and 3 etc., alternately. Theresult is'that on the screen, a clear and moving double picture isproduced.

-Thus, referring to Fig. 3, which shows the parts diagrammatically insubstantially the same position as shown in Fig. 1, the wall 16 blocksthe path of the picture passing through the lens 1 and the wall 21blocks the path of the picture passing through the lens 4. The film isindicated by 30 and the screen is indicated by 31.

In Fig. 4 the portion of the shutter has I been changed and the wall 21blocks the I the wall 21 blocks the lens 2, whereas the pictures passingthrough lenses 1 and 4 pass to the screen 31.

In Fig. 6 the wall 16 blocks the path of the picture passing through thelens 1, and the wall 21 blocks the path of the picture passing throughthe lens 4, whereas pictures are free 'to pass through the lenses 2 and3, and can thus be shown on the screen 31. The direction of movement ofthe device in Figs. 3 to 6 is shown by the arrow 33. At the phase shown,for instance, in the drawing of Fig. 6, the rays are closed off of thepicture going through the left upper lens, number 1. Contemporarily theway is open for the rays going through the right upper lens, number 2.The result on the screen is a double picture made through the lenses 3and 2, 3 being for theleft eye and 2 being for the right eye. Byrotating the device from the position shown in Fig. 6 to the positionshown in Fig. 3, the opening of lens 1, by the posterior part of theboxshutter (at the position indicated by the figure) and the closing oflens 3 through the succeeding phase of the posterior part of the boxshutter (at the position indicated by the figure) takes place, andcontemporarily on the right side, the opening of lens 4 begins and theclosing of lens 2 symmetrically with the foregoing, through the anteriorpart of the box shutter (at the position indicated by the figure). Inthe meantime the picture changes and the light is out off from thescreen by the ordinary shutter 1 of the projector. When the shutter getsinto the position shown in Fig. 4, the lens 1 appears with the nextfollowing picture for the left eye and the lens 4 reproduces again thesame picture as projected through the lens 1 in the last position, inFig. 6. The box shutter is continuously rotating so that the time tochange from the positions shown in Figs. 4

and 6 to the positions shown in Figs. 5 and 3 respectively, must belonger than the changing from the positions shown in Figs. 3 and 5 toFigs. 4 and 6 respectively, as. during the former position, the picturesare showing on,the screen, while in the latter positions the ordinaryshutter l of the proector closes and the film is moved, this period oftime being very small. The effect of the box shutter is the same whileit is moving from the positions shown in Figs. 4 and 6 to the positionsshown in Figs. 5 to 3. Any further movement from the positions shown inFigs. 3 and 5, would cause the left shutter to obstruct the left pictureand permit the right picture to be projected on the tween these twophases the picture changes,

twice at each revolution of the axis 10, the result of this changingbeing that the picture which was projected through lens 1 now will beprojected again through lens 3 and appears on the same portion of thescreen on which it was projected before through the lens 1. At the samemoment, the next following picture is standing behind the lenses 1 and2, the shutter position controlling the proper projection of the rightand left pictures to the right and left' sides of the screenrespectively. The same relation exists between the lenses 2 and 4, thefunction of which with respect to lenses 1 and 3 is alternating. Thefilm used in this projecting apparatus, it will be understood, resultsfrom a taking camera constructed according to my United States PatentNo. 1,071,837, dated September 2d, 1913, so that the pictures arearranged on the film in such manner that the left and right eyepictures, which are one under the other, alternate as left-right,left-right, and so forth. The lenses 1 and 3 project every first pictureand the lenses 2 and 4E everysecond picture alternately to the right andto the left on the screen respectively, the result being that both eyesof the observer have on the screen their own right and left picturescontinuously in juxtaposition. The positions of the box shutter when theordinary shutter 1 is open for projection of the picture are indicatedin Figs. 4 and 6, the ordinary shutter being closed and the film beingmoved while the box shutter passes through the positions indicated inFigs. 3 and 5. Therefore the right eye picture that is projected throughlens 2 in Fig. 6 will be again projected in Fig. 4 through lens 4:, thatis, the right eye picture which appeared in Fig. 6 through lens 2 isexposed until the box shutter is in the position shown in F i 3. Beforetheir movement the function of the usual shutter has started throughwhich the whole aperture is covered. During this function of the usualshutter thefilm unit, which in Fig. 6 was projected through lens 2, isagain projected in Fig. 4 through'lens 4. The effect is the same as ifthe film had not been moved from its previous position, and thecontinuity of the projection would have been for both right and leftpictures, appearing successively twice on the screen.

These pictures should be viewed through the well known optical prismswith dirigible breaking angle.

I have shown one embodiment of the invention, but it is clear thatchanges may be made therein without departing from the spirit of theinvention as defined in the appended claim.

I claim:

An improved projecting system for pro jecting right and left picturesupon a screen, comprising a projecting apparatus provided with anexhibitors aperture plate of double height, a film having lineallyalternating right and left 'pictures,.means for intermittently movingsaid film before said aperture plate, a shutter device adapted to beclosed during the moving of the film, projecting means adapted toproject double laterally adjacent projections of said right and leftpictures and controlling means adapted to be moved during moving of thefilm and adapted to control the simultaneous projection of right andleft pictures from said projecting apparatus, respectively laterally adjacent the right and left side of screen, each picture appearing twice onthe same portion of the screen, said two appearances being separated byone shutterfunction, said controlling means comprising a pair ofrotating Wings one of said wings adapted to obscure right eye pictureswhile the other obscures left eye pictures, and to expose left eye pictures While the other exposes right eye pictures.

In testimony that I claim the foregoing as my invention I have signed myname in presence of two subscribing witnesses.

Jos. BIsBANo, DIANA GORDON.

